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"We don't know where we're going 
but we're on the way" 

A DELIRIOUS EXCURSION 

We shall have arrayed against us in the com- 
ing campaign our ancient and hereditary enemy, 
the Democratic Party. In addition we shall be 
called upon to contend with some former associ- 
ates who have concluded to abandon their amiable 
custom of firing upon the flag they have been fol- 
lowing in order that they may engage in the 
more honorable, but no more effectual, occupa- 
tion of assaulting it from the front. For the 
next few months our ears are to be filled with 
the voice of the malcontent, strident and many- 
keyed, calling, upon the people to forsake the 
tried and beaten paths of constitutional govern- 
ment, along which they have walked with sure 
feet for more than a century, and enter upon a 
personally conducted pilgrimage through the 
political wilderness to a promised land as sha- 
dowy and unsubstantial as a desert mirage. 

The advance apettts of this delirious excursion 
iarried a few days at Chicago, long enough to 
pool their individual grievances, visions, and 
vagaries in a bewildering farrago of impractical 
political nostrums such as never before has 
been collected at one time outside the violent 
wards of a madhouse. And thus the so-called 
Progressive Party was born, its sole excuse for 
existence being the unfounded claim that its 
nominee for the Presidency was defeated for a 
like nomination by stolen votes at the Republi- 
can convention. 

I can not, of course, take the time to discuss 
this claim in detail and i>oint out its utter and 
reckless falsity. The overwhelming majority 
of the national committee, the credentials com- 
mittee, and the tribunal of ultimate appeal, the 
convention itself, after the most thorough and 
patient consideration. decided, and fairly 
decided, against this contention. Of the dele- 
gates elected for Mr. Taft, 238 were contested. 
Of these contests. ItM were rejected as wholly 



E 765 
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without merit. Mr. Roosevelt's own friends on 
the national committee joining in the decision, 
Mr. Roosevelt himself, although acquescing 
in the filing of contests against 24 Alabama de- 
legates, openly stated, after the national com- 
mittee had unanimously seated 22 of them, that 
he had only counted on 2 delegates for himself 
and exhibited a list in which 22 were conceded 
to President Taft. Why were these 22 and 
the remainder of the 164 confessedly frivolous 
contests instituted? 

The Washington Times, a Munsey newspaper, 
and an ardent supporter of Mr. Roosevelt, in- 
genuously furnished the explanation, namely — 
and I quote the exact statement : 

"I'or psychological effect, as a move in 
practical politics, it was nec^ssarj^ for the 
Roosevelt people to start contests in these 
early Taft selections, in order that a tabu- 
lation of delegate strength could be put 
out that would show Roosevelt holding a 
good hand." 

Larceny for "psychological effect" is some- 
thing quite new in the history of penology. 

In other words, more than two-thirds of all 
the contests which were instituted were known 
to be fraudulent from the beginning. Though in- 
stituted for "psychological effect." they were 
ai>parently continued before the national com- 
mittee for more practical reasons. It is dif- 
ficult to imagine a more indecent attempt to dis- 
honestly deprive duly elected delegates of their 
seats and secure unelected Roosevelt dele- 
gates in th^ir places. In view of this conceded 
attempt to steal 164 of the delegates, it might 
not be unreasonable to require something more 
than the mere assertion of the unsuccessful free- 
booter to demonstrate the merit of the remaining 
74 contests. 

It irould he a strange rule of evidence which 
iiouJd require us to accept the testimony of a 
hucfancerinf/ psychologist who confesses to an 
attcnipl to purloin the larger portion of an hon- 
est man's property as conclusive evidence of 
the psychologist's title to the remainder of the 
honcxt man's possessions. 



C? ! 



There never has been in all history a more 
uni<iiie convention than that of the Progressive 
Party at Chicago. Heretofore, when a party has 
been organized, its organizers have in advance 
entertained at least a suspicion respecting their 
principles- but the delegates to this convention, 
wholly ignorant of the things for which they 
stood,' waited with patiently folded hands, the 
appearance of Mr. Roosevelt in the convention 
to tell them what they believed. Upon his ap- 
pearance he was received with reverent adora- 
tion. With a spirit of self-abnegation never wit- 
nessed since the charge of the Light Brigade at 
Balaklava — a "Their's not to reason why, their's 
but to do and die" sort of exaltation, led by the 
Grand Young Man from Indiana, devout but 
tuneful, the assembled vassals prgclaimed their 
joyous intellectual surrender to the feudal lord 
in the following hymn of driveling irresponsi- 
bility : 

Follow, follow. 

We will follow Roosevelt, 

Anywhere, everywhere, 

We. will follow him. 

Follow. follow% 
We will follow Roosevelt, 
Anywhere he leads us 
We will follow on. 

All of which being chanted to the ravishing, 
air of that stirring ditty entitled. "We don't 
know where we're going, but we're on the way." 
wrought the multitude into such a state of 
blind and benighted idolatry that authentic in- 
formation to the effect that the colonel had just 
waylaid a perfectly respectable minister of the 
gospel and robbed him of his last month's do- 
nations would have brought forth enthusiastic 
cheers for the colonel and a vote of stern con- 
demnation for the man of God as the represen- 
tative of a dangerous and iniquitous plutocracy. 
In form 2.000 delegates, more or less, gath- 
ered in the Colliseum : in reality Mr, Roosevelt 
met in convention at Chicago, made a confession 
of faith, gave his hand to the colored brothei 




013 982 442 8 ^ 

I'lom the Xorth and his foot to the colored 
brother from the South, adopted a platform, 
nominated himself and Brother Johnson, and 
adjourned with the ease of a thoroughly trained 
thimble-rigger plying his vocation among the 
rural visitors to the midway plaisanoe. 

The campaign upon which we are about to 
(>uter presents issues of more serious moment 
to the American people than any they have con- 
fronted since the grave questions which immedi- 
ately preceded and accompanied the Civil War. 
The overshadowing question then was whether 
the Union, under the Constitution, could be 
Ijerpetuated ; that which confronts us to-day is 
whether the Constitution itself, and the Gov- 
ernment which the Constitution established, 
shall be preserved — a question of e<iual if not 
greater gravity, since it would be of littlQ 
avail to have preserved the I^nion from the 
chaos of disintegration if the Government of the 
T'nion is to be given over to the chaos of dis- 
organization. 

The party to which we belong, Mr. Vice-Pre- 
sident, stands in this supreme contest for the 
independence and integrity of the judicial tri- 
bunals of the land, without which the guaranty 
of life, liberty, and proi>erty would be a mean- 
ingless platitude. It stands for the settled rule 
of impersonal government, as opposed to the 
shifty opportunism of personal manipulation ; 
for the liberty and order of general law, as 
against the tyranny of special edicts of chang- 
ing men. It plants itself upon the impregnable 
ramparts of the Constitution and. solemnly pro- 
testing against any subversion of the terms ol 
that great compact by the arrogant and revolu- 
tionary process of amendment by misconstruc- 
tion, appeals from the midsummer madness of 
that portion of the people which can be fooled 
all the time to the sober second thought of the 
great body of the American electorate w^ho will 
i-ender judgment in November. — From speech oj 
Senator George Sutherland, of Utah, notifyinf) 
Vice-President Sherman, of his nomination. 
Confrressional Record, Second Sess., 626 Con- 
f/ress, p. 12766. 



HBRARV OF 



CONGRESS 




013 982 442 8 



